Saturday 12 July 2008

Expensive/Cheap

Well to some shame I watched "Gok's Fashion Fix" on C4 on Thursday. I used to like "How To Look Good Naked" because of Gok Wan's caring and not insulting way of talking about a person and the way they looked - far better than the "god, you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards" approach of Trinny and Susannah.

Well what annoyed me about this is the fact that Gok kept going on about how good designers had the best fit and that they never showed where different sections had been stitched on. So imagine my surprise (okay, not) when a supposed stylist picks out an asymmetrical Felder Felder dress not unlike the one to the right. Granted, it didn't have the bow and the sleeve (which I'm finding quite appealing - how much!?). Instead it was rather like a canary-yellow elongated boob-tube with a tacky little strap hooked on at what seemed to be the last minute.

When the model wore it down the catwalk, the body was nicely fitted but the strap looked out of place and was ill-fitting - it didn't touch her arm once. Even my £10 asymmetrical graphic print dress from H&M fits me better than that atrocity. Are people really willing to spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds for something that was so... shoddy? Gok's creations looked expensive and yet he had spent less than £200 on each outfit; that includes skirts, dresses, shoes, socks, belts, bags, hats, bangles, rings... everything!

In another section of the programme, it-girl Alexa Chung went to meet Karl Lagerfeld i.e. top man at Chanel. Each dress there can be made to measure but at the store, at least the coat-dress she tried on fitted nicely and looked like it could be worth €31000! I thought maybe it had too many crystals on the front, but it was a lovely fit. But only in my dreams....

Still, are we actually thinking that a brand name = good quality? If this is the case then no wonder people are getting themselves into debt because they're shopping excessively and trying to look as chic as possible. My philosophy is that you can look just as good in some bargains at the sale as you can do wearing tens and thousands of pounds worth of designer clothes.

Thanks to timesonline.typepad.com/style/images for the pic!

2 comments:

Tina said...

i never buy brand names. im quite happy going to my cheap and cheary clothes shops everything time.

the things some models wear on the cartwalk are just terrible! I wouldnt pay £10 for them never mind 1,000 or whatever it costs!!

coolgirlsar said...

Being a Mum to a four year old and a four year old boy at that I don't designer clothes are the thing for me, not just for cost but are they really suitable for crawling round on the floor playing cars, playing football in the park and carrying in muddy kids from the garden? Give me Asda and Primark any day, they look good, are value for money and last as long as you need. And if I want something that bit nicer there is Next. I wouldn't pay half the cost of the outfit of the designer names.